By the same logic, you oppose education if you oppose the Department of Education, and you oppose shelter if you oppose the Department of Housing and Urban Development. For Ornstein and Kristof, there is no difference between valuing something and insisting that the federal government force other people to pay for it—an attitude that is far more fiscally consequential than the programs they happen to be defending right now.

To belabor the obvious: it rarely occurs to folks inside the progressive bubble how
absurd their arguments seem to those of us on the outside.

■ KDW (I'm just going to call him that from here out) makes his
nomination for "the dumbest word in politics". And that word is ‘Politicized’.
RTWT, but:

People tend to complain about things’ being “politicized” most intensely when the politics is going against them, and the Democrats seem to just be getting the news that Barack Obama’s remarkable self-centeredness made him very, very good at winning elections — for himself. The rest of the Democratic party is in pretty poor shape. And the question they face in the immediate future is not whether to politicize the confirmation of Neil Gorsuch but whether to do so in a stupid and self-destructive way, attempting to do from their current minority position what Republicans did to poor old Merrick Garland (for excellent, political reasons) from their majority position. The problem with that isn’t that it is political, but that it is a terrible idea.

I also got a chuckle from: "The Bill of Rights is, properly
understood, a List of Stuff You Idiots Cannot Be Trusted to Vote On."

Why do we care so much what people make? Why are women being valued
solely by their income, when so many non-income-related things make
a person valuable to society? Things like volunteer work, charity
and, of course, raising the next generation should be considered. We
shouldn’t be telling anyone that they are only as good as the money
they earn.

There are numerous fallacies behind "Equal Pay Day", but that's a
biggie.

Torch the miscreant, resanctify the community. It was the campus
equivalent of a purification ritual, and purifying communities is no
small-scale operation these days: In addition to the five-person
faculty panel, there were three outside lawyers, at least two
in-house lawyers, another lawyer hired by the university to advise
the faculty panel, a rotating cast of staff and administrators, and
a court reporter taking everything down on a little machine. Ludlow
had his lawyer (and on one occasion, two). And there was me.

Professor Kipnis is rightly disturbed. Her article is long, the
ending is sad, but it's an invaluable snapshot of What's Wrong.

[The ramps—one for takeoff, one for landing] might be quicker to
build than it would be to replace the missing section of the
interstate. Also, it would serve as a type of speed enforcement. If
you are driving too slow you won’t make the jump. If you are driving
too fast, you will miss the landing ramp. Oh, it would also be cool
to watch. Everyone driving over the jump would also be required to
yell “YEEEEEEE HAAAWW”.

Yessss. Professor Allain is at Southeastern Louisiana U, which
should be higher on any college applicant's list of schools than
Northwestern.

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